


Harry Potter and the Books He Didn’t Mean to Share

by GallifreyisBurning



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (but like the kind we all write here), (i said it was kinda meta), (porn - they find porn), Author Harry Potter, Crack(ish), Drarry Strugglefest 2020, Fluff, Getting Together, Harry and Draco discover the internet, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Abuse, Mentions of Therapy, Minor Angst, Non-Explicit Sex, Oblivious Harry, and all the fascinating things to be found there, ish, meta fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24862831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, Harry - at the encouragement of his mind healer - writes down the story of his life in order to work through his many years of trauma. Then, he publishes it. Unfortunately, neither he nor his mind healer foresaw how the series would take off. In retrospect, despite his current horror at the situation, Harry supposes it was inevitable that the books would find their way into magical hands once they started gaining in popularity. Now that they finally have, eight years after the war, they're the talk of the town - and Draco Malfoy is NOT happy about it.That is, until he and Harry discover the wide world of fanfiction...
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson/Parvati Patil
Comments: 84
Kudos: 495
Collections: Drarry Strugglefest 2020





	Harry Potter and the Books He Didn’t Mean to Share

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear readers! This idea has been floating around in my head since January. When my friends and I came up with the idea for Drarry Strugglefest, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to finally sit down and write it! I truly hope you enjoy. Thank you very much to my beta readers, [mx_maneater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mx_maneater) and [mjabbers](https://mjabbers.tumblr.com); y'all are amazing and I appreciate you. If you want to say hi, come visit me on [tumblr!](https://gallifrey1sburning.tumblr.com)

It had been his mind healer’s idea to begin with. He’d quickly gotten frustrated with trying to explain to her how differently his life had gone than the public assumed it had, and how hard it was to open up to her, knowing that it was impossible for her—or anyone—to meet him with no preconceptions of who he was. “I just don’t see how this is supposed to help,” he told her, forlorn and frustrated. “How can I possibly explain to you what it’s been like? How can you help me move forward, or whatever, if you don’t even know who I really am because you’ve read all the bullshit that the _Prophet_ has printed about me over the years? It just seems… _pointless_.”

“I understand how it would feel like that, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” she’d told him. “Why don’t you tell me what it’s been like, in your own words?”

Harry had laughed bitterly. “Where would I even start?” he’d asked morosely. “I can’t sum up eighteen years in an hour a week; we’d never talk about anything else.”

“Why don’t you write it down for me, then?” she’d suggested. 

“Not much of a writer,” he’d mumbled.

“Have you ever used a Quick Quotes Quill?”

Harry didn’t answer, but grimaced, remembering Rita Skeeter and her poisonous prose, dictated without her ever speaking a word of it aloud. The healer seemed to almost read his mind, because she added, “They’re not all the journalistic style. You can buy any number of different types, or even have a custom one ordered for you. Why don’t you give it a try, just for this week? Buy the quill, lie down somewhere quiet, and tell your story. Start at the beginning, and just talk about what everything felt like as it happened. If it’s not helpful after a week, you can stop.”

\--

It had turned out to be easier than he’d expected. He’d bought a quill that was described as ideal for writing simple, easily comprehensible text—he didn’t like the idea of his story coming out too flowery or dramatic or anything but straightforwardly his own—and had settled himself on the plush sofa he’d purchased shortly after moving into Grimmauld Place. Then, feeling slightly silly, he’d started to talk to the quill floating over the parchment hovering next to him.

At first it had been difficult. He hadn’t known exactly where to start; he only had a few memories of his early childhood, and they all sort of ran together a bit, but he figured that this didn’t have to be the world’s most coherent document, so he just told the quill the parts that he could recall and moved on. Once he hit the summer that he turned eleven, it became a bit easier. The words started to flow more freely as he thought back to his earliest experiences in the Wizarding world, allowing the nostalgia for simpler times—before he knew his role in things to come—to wash over him. Before he knew it, a week of writing had passed, and then another, and then one day he realized he’d narrated his entire first year at Hogwarts. He’d allowed his mind to travel back to what it had been like: his time at the Dursleys’, Hagrid appearing to tell him that he was a wizard and whisk him away to a world that he could never have imagined. His first trip to Diagon Alley, meeting Ron, Malfoy’s bullying. The unlikely beginning of his friendship with Hermione, their suspicions of Snape. Norbert the Dragon, the Mirror of Erised, the wildly unlikely retrieval of the Sorcerer’s Stone. All of it.

When it was done, he’d handed the whole, rather substantial, stack of parchment over to his mind healer. Had it been helpful? she’d asked him, holding eye contact while she accepted the hefty pile. It had, he told her. Would you like to keep going? she’d asked. He would. “I’ll read what you’ve given me this week, then,” she told him, “and you just keep going.”

And so it had gone, him writing, her reading, until before he knew it they’d made their way through the end of the war. When she had read everything—thousands upon thousands of pages of Harry’s life, wrapped up into neat bundles—they’d been ready to really begin breaking down everything that he was going through now that the war was, ostensibly, over. Before they did, however, she had one more suggestion.

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” she told him, her voice hesitant for the first time since they’d begun meeting, “but your story is very compelling. Would you ever consider publishing it?”

Harry stared at her, horrified, thinking of the myriad of people who had tried to capitalize on his fame ever since he’d become aware of his position as The Boy Who Lived, and she rushed to clarify.

“Not in the Wizarding world, of course! But if you changed the names, some key facts, and so forth, I think it could be quite appealing to Muggle young adults. I have a squib friend who works in a Muggle publishing house; I think she’d be willing to help. I won’t pressure you, but you’ve put a lot of work into getting this all down on paper. It might be cathartic to share your experiences, even in the guise of fiction.”

It had taken Harry a while to come around to the idea, but eventually, he’d accepted her introduction to her publisher friend, thinking of how much it would have meant to him to have stories like his available to him when he’d been locked away in his cupboard. The friend had been delighted to accept Harry’s drafts and had quickly set him up with an editor to help get them into publishing shape. They’d cobbled together an introduction detailing the days leading up to Harry’s arrival at the Dursleys’—using some of what Hagrid had told him about that fateful evening, bits and pieces of the recollections of the end of the first war that various adults had shared over time, and his own experiences with the end of the second war—to put together a beginning that felt appropriate and true. They spent a good deal of time carefully changing details just enough to skirt the Statute of Secrecy. And then, about a year after the end of the war, a small run of a new fantasy book series had appeared in a handful of small Muggle bookshops around England: _Henry Parker and the Magician’s Stone_.

\--

After the first book had been released, the editing process became easier, and one by one, the stories of his life at Hogwarts and through the war were released into the Muggle world, until finally, eight years after the war had ended, the series was complete. His editor, who had become an integral part of his life, had wanted him to add an epilogue, but Harry hadn’t thought his years after the war would make particularly compelling reading, so he’d stubbornly insisted on ending the series at the end of the war. And so, at the age of 26, Harry’s final book was released, leaving him with an odd sense of peace that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. He felt unburdened by sending his story out into the world. The process had been intense, and extremely painful at times, but it was done. He was ready to let it go.

What neither Harry nor his mind healer had foreseen, unfortunately, was the rabid following the books would develop over the years. After the first book’s small initial run, the series had quickly developed a group of devoted fans who shared it with their friends, raising demand and increasing the run sizes of each subsequent volume until the release of the final installment, by which point the series had become a full blown global phenomenon, translated into more that 60 languages. Harry was only marginally aware of the success of the books, having created a pseudonym under which to publish and staunchly refusing to do any press or interviews until his publisher and manager had stopped bothering to ask. Sums of galleons were deposited into his Gringotts vault every so often, in increasing increments, and he donated them to various causes without giving it much thought. In retrospect, though, he really should have.

\--

When Ron and Hermione arrived at his door one day, Hermione holding a copy of the seventh and final Henry Parker book tightly in her hands and looking at him in concern, Harry thought tiredly that he should have seen this coming.

“Shit,” he sighed, before stepping away from the door and gesturing for them to come in.

As it turned out, he soon learned, Dean Thomas had a younger cousin who had been introduced to the books last year and had become well and truly obsessed with them. Dean’s extended family didn’t know about his life in the Wizarding world, the Statute of Secrecy having strict limits on how close a family member must be to be allowed in on the truth, so Dean’s cousin had no idea about his attendance at Hogwarts or participation in a war. The cousin had raved to him about the books at a family gathering, and Dean had apparently only been half-listening to her until certain details had begun to catch his attention and he’d had to ask her to go back and tell him again what the series was. After the gathering, he’d headed straight to the local Waterstone’s, skimming the back cover of the first book with increasing alarm before purchasing the entire series.

After Dean had read the books, he had passed them on to Ginny Weasley. The books contained details—rather a lot of them, actually—which had deeply disturbed him, and he hadn’t known who else to go to. Ginny, after reading the books herself, had passed them on to Ron in the hopes that he might be able to talk to Harry about them, as she and Harry didn’t have a friendship that lent itself to heart-to-hearts over childhood trauma (having settled into a teasing, sibling-esque relationship after their amicable post-war decision not to try to get back together). Ron, being fully aware of his own less-than-tactful ways of handling uncomfortable conversations, had immediately handed the books off to Hermione upon finishing.

And now, here they both were, standing in his sitting room, holding a copy of his supposedly-fictional autobiography and looking at him with open concern. 

“No one in our world was ever supposed to see them,” Harry said with a sigh after a moment of awkward silence. 

“Harry,” Hermione said hesitantly. “Are these… is this what it was really like, for you?”

Shuffling awkwardly, Harry nodded, and Hermione’s face dropped even further while Ron grimaced. Harry sighed. “Let me grab us some drinks,” he said resignedly, “and you can ask me whatever you want to.” 

\--

The conversation was uncomfortable, to say the least. Although his friends were aware, to an extent, about his upbringing, he had never shared the entirety of his abuse with them. Hermione’s concern, however, was mostly with the blasé tone that he had used in describing it. “It sounds like you don’t even think it was a big deal, Harry,” she had expressed, looking distraught.

“You’ve got to understand, Hermione, that I didn’t realize how bad it was at the time,” Harry told her tiredly. “It was all I knew. When I wrote these, I was… I still didn’t get it, really. I didn’t write them to be published, I wrote them for my mind healer. I needed her to know the truth about everything. We used them to work through a lot of things, and she was the one who helped me see how abnormal it was, the way I was raised.. I hated the Dursleys, you know that, and I knew how they treated me was unfair, but I didn’t even understand what abuse _was_ , not really. I do now, though. Honestly.”

Hermione did not look convinced. “Did you really work through all of it, though? Not just the Dursleys but… the rest of it? There’s so much in there you never told us, Harry.”

Ron had been very quiet to this point, avoiding eye contact with Harry. When he finally looked up, however, Harry was shocked to see that his eyes were a bit red. “I wasn’t a very good friend to you, was I?” he asked, his voice rough. “To either of you,” he added, glancing at Hermione.

“What?!” Harry asked, completely unnerved and taken aback by the question. Of all the issues he’d expected to come up, that certainly hadn’t been one of them. “Of course you were! You were my first friend, Ron. I never would have made it through school without you.”

“But the number of times I let you down…”

“Ron, we were kids. We were all shits. And we were in way over our heads, like, one hundred percent of the time.”

Ron gave a sad smile. “I guess. Just, seeing it all laid out like that… the Triwizard Tournament, Wormtail, Lavender, Krum, the horcrux hunt…”

“You always came around, though. And you saved our arses more times than I can count. Remember the chess game? Breaking me out of the Dursleys’ when they locked me in my room? Saving me from that lake in the forest? The _troll_ , for Merlin’s sake!”

Ron rolled his eyes. “The troll was my fault in the first place, though,” he muttered. 

“Yes, well,” Hermione cut in. “You _were_ a bit awful to me at first, but to be fair I was a bit insufferable. Reading about myself on the train that first day made me want to hide under a bed or something. And even as we got older… I made mistakes too, you know. Look at how I wouldn’t leave Harry alone about his Occlumency lessons. I had no idea how badly Snape was treating him, and I just kept _pushing_. And then to keep berating Harry for his visions when they were all that we had to find the horcruxes... I could have lost us the war.” She looked deeply distressed. Ron just took her hand.

“Guys,” Harry assured them, desperate to stop their self recriminations. “You’re great friends. You always were. We lived through some wild shit. We all did the best we could.”

“But Harry–” Hermione continued, but Harry cut her off.

“I get why you’re worried,” he told them. “I really do. But I promise, my mind healer and I talked through all of it. The abuse. My relationships with Snape and Lupin and Sirius. What Dumbledore did to me; how responsible he was for some of the best and worst things about my life. Hell, she even helped me figure out my sexuality—if it weren’t for her I might never have realized I was bi. Writing it all down was really helpful for me in processing, but I swear, I’m fine now. You know I am; you were with me the whole way while I got better.”

Hermione sniffled, but nodded. Ron got up from the sofa, pulling Harry up from his chair and pulling him into a tight hug. After a moment, Hermione joined them, and the three of them just stood like that for a while before pulling back, all choosing to ignore the damp eyes of the others. 

“Better now?” Harry asked his friends, laughing a little wetly. 

“Yes,” Hermione answered.

“Yeah, mate,” Ron agreed. 

“Good,” Harry said. “Now, can we please drink some more? I’d love to forget that anyone I know read all of that, thanks.”

Harry could almost _see_ Hermione biting back a comment on unhealthy coping mechanisms, but she held out her empty glass in solidarity. She really was a good friend, Harry reflected with a grin as he _accio_ -ed the firewhisky bottle.

\--

Forgetting, unfortunately, was not in the cards. Harry didn’t know how it got out—Hermione, Ron, Dean, and Ginny all swore up and down that they hadn’t mentioned the books to anyone else—but less than a week later, Harry opened his copy of the Daily Prophet at breakfast and promptly dropped his tea, scalding his hand and a few spots on his chest and thighs where the boiling liquid had splattered. Swearing, he cleaned up the mess with a quick _tergeo_ before rereading the offending headline:

**Harry Potter Tells All!**

**__** _By Rita Skeeter_

_In a shocking turn of events, the Boy Who Lived—notoriously tight-lipped about his past and unwilling to authorize a single biography, even by award winning journalists—has apparently been slowly telling his entire life story to none other than the unsuspecting Muggle public, passing the tales off as fiction. Yours truly caught the scoop just this weekend and, of course, immediately obtained my own copies of the shockingly popular series. Though names and details have been slightly changed, presumably in an attempt to protect the innocent—or guilty—it is impossible to deny that this literary venture tells the story of Harry Potter’s time at Hogwarts and during the Second Wizarding War through his own round (and often skewed) lenses. From allegations of torture by Hogwarts professors to shocking revelations of the boy hero himself using Unspeakable curses, not to mention borderline libelous claims against myself and other well-regarded Wizarding figures, these books may be fanciful, but they are equally fascinating! Although the series is currently only available in Muggle bookstores, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to conjecture that they’ll be available in Flourish and Blotts in no time at all._

Harry groaned in horror, reading the piece twice over. This was going to be an absolute nightmare. 

\-- 

It took a few days for the flood of owls and floo calls to begin, since the series was fairly substantial and what seemed like the entirety of the European Wizarding population was reading them from beginning to end without pause. Harry had stocked up on food and alcohol in preparation for the fallout, fully intending to never leave his house again. He had long since shielded his home from owls of unknown origin, and it was still under a fidelius charm—being stalked at home as well as in public by the press and fans after the war had been a deeply unattractive prospect—but his friends and acquaintances were, unfortunately, also fascinated by the series. He fielded every conceivable reaction, from hurt feelings (“I swear that’s not how I think of you now, Percy! But you have to admit, you really were a twat in school”) to hilarity (“Shut up George, my first kiss wasn’t THAT funny!”) to overwhelming guilt (“Hagrid, it wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known how bad it was. I never said!”). It was exhausting, and Harry took to kipping on the sofa in front of the fireplace so that he didn’t keep getting pulled out of bed by floo calls. In fact, he was doing just that when, barely two weeks after Rita’s article had broken, he was awakened by loud, insistent knocking on his front door.

Grumbling, Harry rolled himself off the couch, pulling the soft chenille throw he’d been using as a blanket around his shoulders and retrieving his glasses from where he’d left them on his side table before trudging toward the door, eyes barely open. Not many people could get past his fidelius from the outside; he found it easier to accept guests by floo than to have an ever increasing number of people aware of exactly where he lived. He assumed it was Hermione and Ron, or maybe Neville or Luna, dropping by to see how he was handling the chaos (not particularly well, if he was honest, but he was desperately hoping the worst of it had blown over). When he swung the door open, therefore, to be greeted by the very red, very angry face of one Draco Malfoy, he was stunned into silence. 

Harry and Draco had run into each other from time to time after the war, of course. Once people had begun to heal, the strict divides between former Slytherins and the rest of the Hogwarts graduates (or, well, people who had aged out, at least) had begun to dissolve. Ginny had dated Blaise Zabini for a bit after running into him at a club, Pansy Parkinson and Parvati Patil had been an item for several years now, and Greg Goyle currently worked for Neville in his magical landscaping business. Pub nights often involved a mix of Hogwarts alumni from all four houses, and Malfoy had occasionally been dragged along with one or another of his former classmates. While he and Harry weren’t exactly friends, they were at least nodding acquaintances.

An obviously-livid Draco Malfoy showing up on Harry’s doorstep unannounced, was, therefore, a bit of a shock. Holding a book up in Harry’s face, Draco opened with a positively furious “What the FUCK is this, Potter?”

Harry looked at the book—one of his, he noted—and then over at Malfoy’s fuming face, still dumbfounded by the man’s sudden appearance on his front steps. “How do you know where I live?” he asked in bewilderment.

“I’m a Black, you stupid tosser, this house is as much my inheritance as it is yours. Now move, I’m coming in to yell at you.”

Unable to process what was happening quickly enough to disagree, Harry stepped aside and let Malfoy stalk past him. As soon as he had closed the door, Draco whirled on him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he growled. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage these books are going to do to my reputation? Do you have _any_ idea how hard I’ve had to work to be even _minimally_ accepted back into society? You stupid, self-centered, attention-whoring WANKER.” 

His face was positively scarlet with rage, and Harry could do nothing but stare at him in shock. “Sorry, _what?_ ” he asked, extremely intelligently. 

Draco growled before stomping into Harry’s sitting room and marching over to his bar, pouring himself a glass of firewhisky and downing it in one before turning back to Harry. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. These books paint me as the villain of your entire childhood. You talk about me more than _Voldemort_ for fuck’s sake! You make me sound worse than _Umbridge!_ ” 

Harry spared a moment to be impressed with the ease with which Malfoy, who would once have shuddered to say anything other than “The Dark Lord,” now used Voldemort’s name. Then, the rest of Draco’s words began to sink in, and Harry shook himself out of his stupor to defend himself. “Now hang on,” he said, irritated. “First of all, you _were_ the villain of my childhood! You bullied me and my friends relentlessly right up until you became a fucking Death Eater!” Malfoy flinched, but kept glaring. “I saw Voldemort _once_ before I started having those stupid visions, and even then, those barely ever happened. You were there _every day_ trying to make my life hell.” Malfoy opened his mouth as though to respond, and Harry held up an angry hand, which seemed to stun the blond into offended silence. “And secondly, I never intended anyone in the Wizarding world to even _know_ about these books. It’s not like I set out to ‘ruin your reputation.’ Which, by the way, what the fuck? It’s not like no one knows you were a prat in school.”

“Oh please,” Draco spat, “Even you aren’t stupid enough to have imagined these wouldn’t make it back into our world. Harry Potter, who fought a war to protect Muggleborns, didn’t think that anyone who knew who he was would ever shop in a Muggle bookstore? Give me a fucking break.”

Harry flushed. He’d berated himself endlessly over recent days about his own idiocy. In retrospect, it was inevitable that the books would find their way into magical hands once they started gaining in popularity. Still, Malfoy pointing out just how naïve he’d been irritated him immensely.

Malfoy, however, seemed to take the blush as a confession of guilt. “You’re unbelievable,” he scowled. “Your utter hypocrisy. Always claiming you don’t want fame, always saying you believe in redemption, and yet here you are, throwing all my childhood mistakes in my face like I haven’t changed a thing since then while putting yourself right back in the fucking spotlight.”

“Where does it say I don’t believe in redemption?!” Harry asked, incredulous.

Draco brandished the book again. “There is nothing even _slightly_ redeemable about the person you paint me as in this… this _rubbish_.” 

“What are you even talking about?!” Harry yelled, frustrated. “I just told the truth! I told the facts of my life! I’m sorry if they don’t paint you in a flattering light, but that’s who you _were_ back then! It’s not like I think you’re still that person; Merlin.”

“Oh please,” Malfoy sneered. “Why else would you have put this tripe out into the world for anyone to see?”

“I wrote them for _therapy_ for fuck’s sake!” Harry groaned, his hands grasping at his hair in frustration. “They were supposed to help me work my shit out, and my mind healer thought they’d make good Muggle novels!” 

Draco snorted, ignoring him. “You know, it’s not like I thought we were friends or anything, but I thought you at least didn’t hate me anymore. But once a Death Eater, right?”

“I don’t hate you, you prat!” Harry yelled, possibly undermining his own message just a tad. “I don’t think I even hated you as a kid, you just annoyed the shit out of me!”

“Of course you hate me,” Draco scoffed with a roll of his eyes, “Why else would you try to ruin my life like this?”

“IT WASN’T ABOUT YOU!” Harry shouted, shocking Draco into silence once more. Harry took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, grateful that he’d learned to control his once not-uncommon rage-fueled bursts of accidental magic. “It wasn’t about you,” he repeated, more quietly. “I wrote them right after the war, when I was a complete wreck, and everyone thought they knew me but no one actually did, and I just needed to… tell someone. That’s all. After… after she read them, after we worked through some of the bigger stuff, my mind healer and I talked about you a bit, and she helped me see that we were really two sides of the same coin. Neither of us had much of a choice. We believed what the people we trusted told us to believe, and we did what we had to do to protect the people we loved. We were pawns in a war before we were even old enough to drink, for fuck’s sake. So no, I didn’t hate you. No more than I hated myself,” he finished quietly.

Draco looked at a loss. His skin was still flushed with emotion, but his eyes had lost the angry glint they’d held moments before. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, but then seemed to shake himself internally and hardened his gaze once more. “Be that as it may,” he said coldly, “these are currently the most popular books in the Wizarding world, and regardless of what you intended, they’re going to dig up my past and ruin my life. So thanks for that.” And with a final cold look, he turned and stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

\--

The next day, after a restless night of trying to process Malfoy’s fury, Harry decided to leave his self-imposed exile to go to dinner at Ron and Hermione’s. They’d invited him, along with a handful of their other close friends (Ginny, Neville, Luna, Seamus, and Dean) before the whole Henry Parker debacle had started, and he hadn’t intended to go anymore, but ultimately decided that a bit of company and some friends to vent to were exactly what he needed. 

They had finished their meal and were lounging around Ron and Hermione’s sitting room working on their third bottle of wine, basking in the pleasure of good company and mild tipsiness, when Harry finally got up the courage to mention his odd visitor. He was sitting on the floor, leaning one shoulder against the sofa where Ron and Hermione were curled up, when he broached the topic.

“So, Malfoy came by yesterday,” he opened, trying to sound casual, but the immediacy with which every eye on the room focused on him indicated that he had likely failed spectacularly.

“Oh?” Hermione asked, sharing a quick glance with Ron, who looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“Yeah,” Harry went on, ignoring the odd reaction, “he seemed to think that my books were designed to ruin his life. Said I talked about him more than Voldemort.”

No one answered for a few awkwardly silent moments, and then finally Hermione broke in with a reluctant, “Well…”

“Oh come, on, I did not!”

“You kind of did, mate,” Ron said apologetically. Harry looked around the room for support, but Neville was looking pointedly up at the ceiling, while Ginny was trying to bite back a grin and Seamus was outright smirking at him. Dean, at least, looked mildly uncomfortable, and Luna (being Luna) didn’t appear to be paying much attention to what was happening either way, and was therefore of very little help.

“I didn’t…” Harry started, but then cut himself off. “...did I?”

A series of nods, ranging from resigned to amused, went around the room. Even Luna hummed in agreement. Harry was beginning to feel a bit nauseous. “So, when he said this was going to undermine all the work he’s done…”

At that, Seamus barked a laugh. “Is _that_ what he thought? Blimey, that’s not what I got from it at all!” Ginny snorted, and Hermione bit her lip, evidently trying to keep her expression neutral. 

Harry looked around at them all, confused. “What? What do you mean?”

After another short silence, Ginny spoke up. “Are you being serious right now?” Harry just looked at her, and she rolled her eyes, muttering something about clueless boys. “Harry, you talk about him more than anyone but Ron and Hermione, and in almost _every instance_ you talk about his appearance. How his hair sparkles in the sunlight, how he looks in his dress robes, his ‘silver’ eyes, how his appearance changed during the war. Harry, you _dated_ me and you didn’t even mention what color my eyes were until the last book!”

“I didn’t?” Harry asked, surprised.

“You didn’t,” Seamus confirmed, gleefully. “Also, did you really spend the entirety of sixth year stalking him?”

“Err…” Harry answered uncomfortably. Seamus let out a gleeful cackle.

“Oh come, on,” Harry tried, desperate to defend himself, “he was a Death Eater! I was trying to figure out what he was up to!” From the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione and Ron share another look, and determinedly refused to look at him head-on.

“Mate…” said Ron, helplessly.

“I think it’s sweet how long you’ve been in love with him,” Luna interjected, sounding completely sincere and not at all as though she could sense Harry’s distress at how the conversation was unfolding. 

“I am NOT–” Harry began, but Ginny cut him off.

“Hermione, do you have the books here?” she asked, her eyes glinting in a way that Harry found extremely disturbing. 

“Well, yes, in the library, but I don’t think...” Hermione trailed off, sounding conflicted at assisting in any further attack on Harry.

“ _Accio_ Henry Parker book six,” Ginny cast with relish, holding out her hand until the heavy volume flew into it with a satisfying _thwack._ Ginny set it down in her lap, shaking out her hand (to the annoyed satisfaction of Harry) before flipping through the pages until she found the section she was evidently looking for. “Ah, here we are!” With a dramatic clearing of her throat, she began to read aloud: “‘Henry, however, had never been less interested in Quidditch; he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Damien Malchoix.’” Closing the book with a damning finality, she raised an eyebrow at Harry, daring him to explain that particular passage away.

Harry’s head dropped into his hands, hiding his blazing red face as he groaned in distress. “Fuck, I really said that?” He looked up again, hoping that someone— _anyone_ —would contradict the narrative that was quickly becoming obvious, even to him. Once again, most of the room’s inhabitants nodded at him. Neville, at least, was looking at him sympathetically. Dean grimaced, too, but everyone else—even Hermione—was looking extremely amused by now. “Christ,” Harry muttered, once again burying his head in his hands.

Hermione rubbed his back soothingly, and then ventured, “So… when you said your mind healer helped you sort out that your were bisexual based on what you wrote… you _weren’t_ talking about Malfoy?”

“No!” Harry answered, pained voice muffled by his hands. Sitting up, he closed his eyes and tipped his head backwards, defeated. “At least, I didn’t think we were. She just mentioned how often I talked about how handsome men were. I thought she just meant, like, Cedric and Bill. And maybe Sirius, even though that’s a pretty fucking awkward one to admit.” He could hear Ron make a slight retching sound at the mention of his brother, followed by an “ow!” as, Harry surmised, Hermione elbowed him.

“I’m never going to be able to face him again,” Harry muttered morosely. Ron gave him a sympathetic pat on the back before refilling his wine.

\--

A few days later, Dean managed to convince Harry to leave Grimmauld Place once again, bribing him with an apology drink for bringing Harry’s books into the magical world. “I didn’t mean to start all this nonsense,” he’d said, sounding repentant, “I was just worried about some of the stuff you said. You don’t talk about your life much, you know? I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Harry had reassured his friend that he didn’t blame him. “They would have gotten out eventually,” he’d sighed. “I didn’t really think they’d get so popular.”

And so, Harry had accompanied Dean to Diagon Alley, on the condition that he could wear a glamour to avoid being hassled. The pair had spent a pleasant afternoon wandering through a few stores and sipping frosty pints at a newer establishment featuring an outdoor seating area before Dean finally departed for his studio. He had a show coming up soon in a small Muggle gallery, and had lately taken to disappearing for longer and longer stretches of time to put “final touches” on his work, often leading to Seamus having to forcefully Apparate him home to make sure he got some sleep. 

Harry lingered at their table on the patio, sipping at the end of his lager and casually people-watching, enjoying the freedom his glamour gave him to do so. He usually tried to maintain his own appearance in public despite the press and public attention—knowing from experience that in the tiny wizarding community, the more often people saw him, the less of a novelty he became—and so he rarely experienced the complete anonymity he had today. He was just contemplating heading home when a strident and _very_ familiar voice caught his ear, stilling him.

“He just painted me as such a _monster_ ,” came the frustrated voice of Draco Malfoy.

“Well, you were, a bit, to be fair,” answered a bored voice that Harry recognized as that of Pansy Parkinson. Turning slightly in his chair so that he could see the pair in his peripheral vision without obviously eavesdropping, he spotted the two—along with Parvati Patil—at a table close to the edges of the cozy patio, well within hearing distance. Even without looking directly at the blond, Harry could see him glaring at his friend. Even angry, he looked gorgeous, Harry realized, feeling pained. _How_ had he not realized how attracted he was to the git? 

“You’re supposed to be on my side, you cow,” Malfoy muttered, and Pansy smirked. “These stupid books are reminding people of every mistake I’ve ever made. I’ve already noticed people whispering as I walk past them. I’m going to be a pariah. _Again._ ” Harry tried not to wince. 

“Oh, my darling,” Pansy drawled, “for someone so intelligent, you’re really quite idiotic at times.” Parvati snickered beside her (a sound Harry was sure he’d never once heard come from her lips before she’d begun dating the former Slytherin), and Draco looked at them both, raising an annoyed eyebrow.

“What in Merlin are you talking about?” he asked tersely.

“Those people aren’t talking about your bullying,” Parvati said, laughter in her voice. “They’re talking about… ah… well, you and Potter.”

“Well of course they are, that’s what I was saying!” Draco’s exasperation had not lessened, and his scowl only grew deeper as Parvati laughed more openly.

“Not like that, you knob,” Pansy answered, and Harry swore that he could _hear_ her eyes rolling. “They’re talking about Potter’s _extremely_ obvious crush on you.”

Harry flushed and tried to be subtle as he turned his face away from the table, grateful for his disguise. Pansy continued, oblivious to the discomfort of the man sitting mere feet away from her. “They are, in fact… what did you say Lavender called it, love?”

“Shipping it,” Parvati answered gleefully.

“Sorry, what?” Draco asked, sounding as confused as Harry felt.

“Shipping,” Parvati repeated. “Like relationship? They like the idea of the two of you together.” Her voice took on a teasing, dramatically romantic air. “The reformed Death Eater and the Boy Who Lived, star crossed lovers, pining for each other even as they hid behind a boyish rivalry, only to be forced onto different sides of a war.” 

“WHAT?!” Draco screeched, causing Harry to wince and several other patrons to look over at the trio’s table interestedly. Draco lowered his voice at the attention, but his loud whisper still carried as far as Harry’s table. “I was not pining, and Potter _certainly_ wasn’t interested in anything other than one-upping me every chance he got.”

“Oh please.” Pansy answered. “You forget I shared a common room with you, Draco dear. You never shut up about our wonderful Savior from the day we started school through the beginning of sixth year, and even then I suspect that the lull was only because you stopped talking to any of us. It certainly picked right up again after the war.”

“It really was quite obvious how obsessed with each other you were,” Parvati agreed. “Harry paid more attention to you than to _me_ at the Yule Ball, and I was his _date._ ”

“Ooh, tell him that thing you told me about the Muggles and the… enternets?”

“Internet,” Parvati corrected.

“Whatever. Tell him about the dirty stories.”

Chancing a glance over his shoulder, Harry could see the mischievous twinkle in his former classmate’s eyes. “Well, it turns out that Muggles like to write stories of their own about their favorite characters. Sort of a way to keep a book going, or to change it to have an ending they like better, or whatever. From what I can tell, it’s usually an excuse for them to write about pairs they ‘ship’ having sex in various ways. They share them with each other on the internet; there are whole collections of them available. They call it ‘fanfiction,’ and there are _thousands_ about you and Harry.”

Harry didn’t get a chance to hear what Malfoy’s response to this horrifying revelation was, because he was out of his seat and Apparating away as soon as that final sentence left Parvati’s lips. 

\--

“Hermione, I need you to show me how to use the internet,” Harry announced to his friend upon appearing in her living room, startling her into dropping the book she’d been reading. 

“Honestly, Harry! You can’t just Apparate right into our house, it’s rude. What if I’d been naked or something?”

“Sorry,” Harry apologized. “But it’s urgent. I overheard Pansy, Parvati, and Malfoy–” Hermione sighed, but Harry continued without hearing “in Diagon Alley talking about how people _write stories_ about us on the internet, and I need to see what they’re saying.”

Hermione’s eyes took on an interested glint. “Are they really?” she asked, fascinated in a way that made Harry feel a bit uncomfortable, “Well alright then, I’ll help you. Although I don’t know why you haven’t already learned; it’s not like you’re _completely_ cut off from the Muggle world.”

Harry looked away guiltily; Hermione had been trying to get him to use a computer for ages now, but he just hadn’t seen much of a point. He wasn’t an information junkie like his friend, and he’d rather be outside playing Quidditch or over at Andromeda’s playing with Teddy than inside staring at a screen. It wasn’t like any of his friends used email; electricity wasn’t always reliable in heavily magical homes (there were workarounds, but most people didn’t find them worth the bother), and even his Muggleborn friends had limited experience with computers since they spent the majority of their school years at Hogwarts, which was so steeped in magic and so remote that even if a computer _could_ work within its walls, there was no way they’d ever get internet. For the most part, everyone still just used owls or floo calls to get in touch with each other. Harry had a cell phone, as did many of his peers, but they only tended to use them when they were out of their homes and therefore not near a floo. Most of his experience with computers had been Dudley’s obsessive gaming as a child, and Harry’d never been allowed to touch. As he’d gotten older and more immersed in the Wizarding world, he’d just sort of lost interest in the whole concept. Computers had just seemed dull in the face of actual magic.

Hermione ignored Harry’s sheepish look and put her book away, gathering her bag from near the front door. “Well, come on then,” she directed, “I’ll take you to the library near the entrance to Diagon. They have computers you can use for free.”

\--

An hour or so later, Harry and Hermione were settled in front of a public computer, staring in fascination and horror at the literally tens of thousands of stories about ‘Henry’ and ‘Damien’ on a site that appeared to be entirely dedicated to fanfiction. Although there were hundreds of subjects, from movies and television shows as well as from various book series, the Henry Parker stories were by far the most prevalent. “Oh my god,” Harry choked as he scrolled through one piece which held a particularly explicit scene between ‘Henry’ and ‘Damien’ featuring significantly more leather and rope than any of Harry’s actual sexual exploits had to date, leaving him an unsettling mix of humiliated and aroused. 

“Oh my,” Hermione said, reading over his shoulder until Harry quickly closed the page. “That was quite…” she looked rather flushed, and Harry couldn’t tell whether she was embarrassed or titillated. He decided immediately that he’d prefer not to know.

“Right,” he said with finality. “Well, now I’ve seen them. Let’s leave, please?” With a slightly dazed nod, Hermione gathered her things and they departed the library, pointedly not meeting one another’s gaze.

\--

Despite his deeply conflicted reaction to the fanfiction, Harry couldn’t seem to stop himself from reading it. He found himself returning to the Muggle library day after day to use the computer, reading endless tales of the myriad ways that he and Draco might fall in love. In some, they were Auror partners (and although Harry had never regretted his decision not to enter the force after the war, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the many scenarios of being trapped in close quarters without magic, or of love confessions over hospital beds); in others they played on professional Quidditch teams opposite one another, leading to some very _steamy_ locker room encounters; and in some they were coparenting Teddy and slowly falling in love in tender ways that made Harry’s heart ache a bit. In some, Draco switched sides before the end of the war. In some, Harry sorted Slytherin and they’d been best friends from the start. 

Others hit a little too close to home, touching on his childhood abuse in ways that made him shuffle uncomfortably in his seat, or dealing with the complications of the post-war Wizarding world and how fucked up he’d been when it ended, or the painful process of coming to terms with his own sexuality. These often left him feeling a bit raw, like someone had _scourgify_ -ed the inside of his chest. He was shocked by how people had managed to piece the deep traumas and inner secrets of his life together despite the fact that he hadn’t understood many of them himself when he’d authored the series. Many of the fanfics were better written than the books that had inspired them, he had to admit to himself, and despite his discomfort he couldn’t bring himself to stop reading them.

The things that he read followed Harry around long after he left the library—vivid images of Malfoy spread beneath him or hovering above him, sweaty and disheveled and beautiful. Of the blond on his knees or vice versa, one of them staring down at the other, completely enthralled. But it wasn’t only the sex that haunted Harry; it was the more mundane things, the things that he hadn’t even realized he wanted. Lazy mornings with cups of hot tea and familiar touches, evenings spent talking about their days, comfortably familiar teasing and shared routines and the reassuring knowledge that there was someone to go home to—someone to take care of and who would take care in return. Someone to share burdens and joys with. 

After the war, Harry hadn’t allowed himself to give much thought to these things. He hadn’t… he didn’t know. Thought he was capable, maybe? Thought that he deserved it? Sure, he’d dated a bit, or tried to, but nothing had ever fit. This… this fit. And now that he knew, now that he could _see_ it, now that he could admit to himself that perhaps he’d always wanted Malfoy on some level—had known that they _understood_ each other in a way that possibly no one else ever could—well. It wasn’t like it would really ever happen, he knew. But there was no harm in indulging in the fantasies, right? In living through other people’s vicarious dreams of what his life could have been? 

It wasn’t just the stories from his own perspective that fascinated Harry, either. The ones that took Draco’s point of view were, in some ways, even more intriguing. The insights into what the other boy had likely gone through during the war; the complicated feelings about his family; the attempts to tear down his beliefs and rebuild them, and his life, from the wreckage the war had left behind. Harry had long forgiven Draco, understood that his position had been as much decided for him as Harry’s had, but he’d never really taken the time to put himself in the other man’s shoes. It gave him new perspective on why Malfoy had blown up the way he had when he’d read the books; how hard must it have been, after all that time, to have his past crimes laid out in black and white for the whole world to read?

And so, without allowing himself to think about it too much, Harry kept going back.

After almost two weeks of nearly daily visits to the library, he had become intimately familiar with the other regular patrons of the public computer bank. There was the little old lady with her blue-tinted curls who pecked out letters on the keyboard one by one, even more slowly than Harry himself. There were the pair of teenaged boys who seemed to split their time between working on homework and snickering over things Harry thought he’d prefer not to look at. There was the middle-aged man who wore a pair of reading glasses around his neck but seemed to prefer to lean forward until his nose nearly touched the screen rather than use them. And, of course, there was the girl dressed all in black who never seemed to leave her seat and who, when Harry glanced at her screen while walking past, seemed to be playing a game of some sort that appeared to be full of inaccurate depictions of magical creatures and people.

Therefore, when he headed—a few hours later than usual, due to a slight kitchen disaster caused by some fairly enthralling daydreaming and some less-than-close attention toward his stovetop—toward his usual computer station one otherwise-unremarkable day and caught sight of a horrifyingly familiar head of immaculately styled white-blond hair at the computer next to his, he froze in place. Without meaning to, Harry let out a distressed “oh fuck.”

Malfoy looked up at the words, and his eyes widened as his face turned a truly spectacular shade of pink. “ _Potter?_ ” he asked in disbelief.

“Err, hi?” Harry answered awkwardly. “What are you doing here?” He glanced at the other man’s screen, but Malfoy quickly closed the browser window he’d had open, blushing, if possible, even more furiously. 

“None of your business,” he spat out. The blue-haired old lady, who was seated to his left, glared at the pair of them pointedly.

“Right, sorry,” Harry said, flustered, apologizing to both of them with a grimace. “I’ll just…” he gestured with his thumb over his shoulder and had already begun to turn away when he heard Draco’s pained voice.

“Wait...”

Harry looked back, and the other man sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and meeting Harry’s gaze, looking determined. “Would you be willing to have a drink with me?” he asked, and Harry could hear how hard he was trying to keep his voice cool and even. “I think we need to talk.” 

Harry felt his insides twist in discomfort, but decided that he probably did owe Malfoy an apology, as much as he dreaded the thought of sitting next to him with the many fictional images he’d recently been haunted by flitting through his mind. “Yeah, alright,” he found himself agreeing, lowering his voice so as not to invoke the old lady’s ire for a second time. “There’s a pub just across the way that we could go to; it’s–” he glanced at the other patrons “–not um, you know, someplace frequented by… our sort... so no one will bother us.”

“Sounds ideal,” Malfoy agreed, looking somehow both relieved and nervous at the same time.

“Right. Great. Um, should we….?” 

Malfoy nodded and logged out of his computer before standing up and joining Harry. Harry couldn’t help but admire how Draco’s thin frame was flattered by the Muggle clothes he’d donned to brave the library. The slim cut of the jeans he wore accentuated his long legs, and the pristine white button-up shirt somehow made his pale hair and silvery eyes even more striking. Quickly averting his eyes before Malfoy caught him staring, Harry led them to the nearby pub, paying for two ciders when the other made a face at the offer of a beer before settling them into an empty booth. It was only early afternoon, so the place wasn’t particularly busy or loud. At least that meant they wouldn’t have to yell at each other to be heard, Harry thought, trying to find a bright side to the current situation.

They sat there uncomfortably for a minute, Harry sipping at his drink and looking over at the bar while Malfoy stared down at his glass, absentmindedly tracing patterns in the condensation with a long, pale finger. “Look, I wanted to say–” Harry finally began, just as Draco also broke the silence, saying “I feel that I owe you an–”

Both men stopped, looking at each other awkwardly. “You go ahead,” Malfoy finally said.

“I wanted to apologize,” Harry said, looking down at the table. “I honestly didn’t mean to make your life more difficult. But I should have realized what it would be like for you, once everything came out. I shouldn’t have dismissed you like I did when you confronted me about it. I…” he breathed out, and then looked up at the other man. “I’m really sorry.”

Draco held his gaze for a minute, his own eyes seeming to search Harry’s for something before glancing away. “I also wanted to apologize,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you like I did. It wasn’t fair of me to blame you for being truthful about our past. I just don’t like to think about who I was back then.”

Harry nodded. “I get it,” he said. “I wasn’t the most admirable person myself, despite what people seemed to think. That was sort of why I wrote the books in the first place.”

“No need to tell _me_ that you weren’t a saint,” Draco answered with a slight smirk. Harry rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but grin, and, just like that, the ice was broken.

From there, surprisingly, the conversation began to flow easily. Harry asked after Malfoy’s mother, which transitioned into a conversation about Teddy (whom they both spent a great deal of time with, although never overlapping except for occasionally at his birthday parties). From there, they talked a bit about Malfoy’s work (something to do with arithmancy research that Harry couldn’t even begin to understand) and Harry’s various charity projects. Then it was Quidditch, and then, after a few more ciders, the sad state of attempting to date in the Wizarding world, with Harry complaining about how anyone who wasn’t a former classmate was only interested in his fame (and how even classmates didn’t quite understand him, except for a small handful of very close friends whom it would feel almost incestuous to date), while Draco bemoaned the fact that men thought of him as a ‘bad boy’ due to his past and then were massively disappointed when they realized just how normal—and borderline boring—he actually was. 

Harry had scoffed at that. “Oh please, like you could ever be boring,” he said, unthinkingly, with a roll of his eyes.

“Hmm, well, you have always been quite fascinated by me,” Malfoy teased, smirking. 

Harry blushed, muttering “Shut up,” before reaching across the table to flick the other man in the shoulder, causing him to yelp and rub his arm with a classically Malfoy-ish dramatic flair. Harry snickered, and Malfoy leaned over to flick him back, drawing an indignant “Hey!” from Harry. Draco grinned at him mischievously, and Harry couldn’t help but grin back. _This is fun_ , he realized, still smiling at the other man. _He’s less intimidating when he smiles._ And then, without meaning to, he glanced down at the other man’s lips. Catching himself, he looked back up, only to see Draco’s eyes taking on a considering look. Embarrassed, Harry looked away.

Gazing out at the rest of the pub, trying to distract himself from the unnerving moment, Harry vaguely registered a pair of girls, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, sitting at the bar. Just as he looked over, one of them glanced at the booth Harry and Draco occupied, and her eyes widened. Quickly, she got her friend’s attention and pointed over at them. _Shit,_ Harry thought, _they must be witches. We’re too close to Diagon Alley._ He braced himself to flee, preparing to tell Malfoy that he had a prior engagement and needed to leave, when an excited squeal reached him.

“Oh my god, they look just like Henry and Damien!” the second girl cried before her friend shushed her, giving Harry an apologetic look. 

Harry could feel his face beginning to flush and reluctantly looked back at Malfoy. Malfoy, who was every bit as red as Harry and was studiously trying not to catch his eye. “Oh god, you’ve read the fanfiction too,” Harry blurted, immediately clapping his hand over his mouth in panic at his outburst. Draco’s gaze shot to him, his expression shocked and dismayed. “Is _that_ why you were at the library?” Harry asked in horror, trying—and failing—to whisper. 

“Is that why _you_ were?” Draco shot back, pointedly not answering.

“I…” Harry looked helplessly at the other man, unable to deny it but unwilling to admit it aloud. Draco’s eyes widened even further. The pair sat there for a few extremely awkward moments until, surprising them both, Draco began to laugh. After a stunned moment, Harry felt himself cracking a grin, and before he knew it, they were both laughing so hard that Harry had to clutch at his aching sides.

“Oh god,” Draco said, gasping for breath. “This has got to be the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Same,” Harry said, wiping tears from his eyes, “and I died once.” Draco snorted, and then they both lapsed back into helpless laughter. When the borderline hysterics finally subsided, Draco met Harry’s eyes once more, and said, continuing their earlier conversation as though it hadn’t been interrupted by a ridiculous laughing fit, “Well, I must admit, some of them are rather fascinating.”

“They really are,” Harry agreed. He should stop there, he knew, but the slight fuzziness of the cider and their congenial conversation up until this point had dissolved much of the already-minimal barrier between his brain and his mouth, and he heard himself admitting, “Some of them are kind of nice.”

Draco’s eyes widened slightly at this, but after a pause, he nodded cautiously. “Yes, they are, aren’t they?” 

Relaxing even further, Harry went on, somehow more comfortable discussing this with Draco than he would have been with someone who wasn’t so intimately a part of this bizarre situation. “It’s… I don’t know. Kind of neat, I guess? To read about so many different ways life could have gone. I mean don’t get me wrong, some of them are _completely_ bonkers—” Draco snorted wryly at this— “but it’s… I mean, I’ve… never had… that. It’s nice, is all.” 

Draco raised an eyebrow, and Harry could feel himself blushing as the blond responded, “I don’t know if _nice_ is exactly the word I would use. Some of them are rather… _compelling_ , however.” He smirked at Harry, who looked away quickly, his mind immediately filling with some of the more ‘compelling’ scenes, unable to tell if he was imagining the slight heat in the other man’s gaze or whether it was amusement at his expense.

“I didn’t mean _those_ bits! I mean, not that they weren’t… I mean they were very…” Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to meet the silvery eyes observing him so closely. “Alright, fine, they left some fairly vivid images.”

“Indeed,” Draco answered, and the timber of his voice convinced Harry that meeting the other man’s gaze might not be the worst idea in the world. Chancing it, Harry looked back, and was abruptly glad that he had. He was almost sure that he could detect interest in the pale grey eyes, a question and suggestion all in one, and mustered up all of his Gryffindor courage before answering. “I mean, they weren’t the only parts that appealed, but they certainly piqued my interest.” He quirked a grin at the blond, hiding his nerves—nerves that took on a less-worried and more-anticipatory quality at the no-longer-slight heat that had become much more apparent in the other man’s eyes.

“Is that so?” Draco sounded casually seductive, but there was a slight tension in his body that belied his confidence. However, he then glanced pointedly down at Harry’s lips before licking his own enticingly, completely driving the observation from Harry’s mind. He could hear himself let out an embarrassing little whimper. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in, shall we say, seeing how some of the more… _interesting_ … scenarios would play out in reality?” Draco continued. His slow, obvious perusal of Harry’s body left no question as to just which scenarios he had in mind, and Harry could have sworn he felt his insides flip upside down in anticipation.

“Fuck yes,” he answered without allowing himself to second-guess things. “Come back to mine?”

Draco nodded and stood, pulling Harry to his feet and toward the door, where they quickly found a secluded alley from which to Apparate.

\--

As soon as they appeared in Harry’s foyer, they were on each other, and everything was soft lips and sharp teeth and wandering hands, “please” and “more” and “oh my fuck, YES.” Fingers scrabbled at buttons and buckles and flies, and at one point Draco apparently got fairly impatient because Harry’s jeans vanished into the ether between one breath and the next.

“Hey, those were my favorites,” Harry complained between kisses.

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” Draco promised, and then there was no more space for talking.

Harry wasn’t even sure how they made it to his bedroom—with the amount of time they spent connected at the mouth, he couldn’t understand how they’d managed to climb the steep stairs—but somehow they did, leaving a trail of clothes behind them. Finally, _finally_ , they made it to the bed, and then there was nothing but warm skin and hot mouths and eager, dextrous fingers and then grey eyes held green as Draco sank into him, and Harry thought that nothing had ever felt so right in his entire life.

\--

Rather a long while later, Harry lay sprawled on his bed—exhausted, sweaty, sore, and happier than he could remember being in a long time—while Draco went to clean himself off in the ensuite. Staring at the ceiling, Harry called to him, as though the past few hours had only been a lull in their conversation, “So, what was the weirdest story you came across?”

An answering voice, slightly rough in a way that made Harry tingle all over as he remembered how it had gotten that way, came from beyond the open door. “Hmm, well there were several where I was part veela… the Muggles have come up with the strangest version of them, did you notice? Some nonsense about fated mates that bond for life.”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, I saw some of those. Fleur would be horrified.”

“What about you?”

“There was an extremely interesting one where I was a werewolf and you were a vampire and we met in a sex dungeon,” Harry returned, grinning over at the door.

Draco stuck his head out, peering at Harry in amused interest. “I didn’t come across that one. Sex dungeon, did you say?” 

“Mmm,” Harry answered, turning onto his side to rest his head on his fist and biting his lip as he looked at the other man, who had stepped back into the room entirely now and was still gloriously nude. Draco blushed.

“Stop that,” he chastised, moving the damp washcloth he held in his hand to shield his privates. “You’re going to make me want to jump you again, and I’m pretty sure that if I try, my cock will fall off in protest.” He wandlessly _accio_ -ed his boxers from the hall and retreated back into the ensuite.

Harry laughed and flopped back onto his back, ignoring the niggling feeling that perhaps this was it; perhaps Draco had gotten his curiosity out of his system and was now preparing to leave. “Fine,” he sighed, “I’m too sore to move anyway.” His stomach growled at him and he added sheepishly. “Also, I’m starving.”

“Merlin, me too,” Draco answered, reemerging, this time in his boxers, and flopping gracelessly on the bed next to Harry. Harry felt a grin spreading across his face at the man’s return, even as he went on, “I don’t suppose you cook?” 

“I do, but I don’t think I can stand right now,” Harry answered truthfully. “Fancy a takeaway? There’s a place nearby with good curry.” _Please say yes,_ he thought. He wasn’t ready for this day to end.

“Perfect,” Draco sighed, curling up against Harry’s side. The casual way he did so, as though cuddling, mostly-naked, with Harry was a completely normal and comfortable thing to do—like he belonged there, in Harry’s bed, in Harry’s life—made Harry’s heart flutter. Perhaps the stories weren’t so unattainable after all?

Sliding a hand into silky blond hair, Harry let out a contented sigh, allowing himself to enjoy the moment before he had to pull himself together to obtain sustenance for himself and his completely fucked out—well, not boyfriend. Not yet, at least. But something, anyway; something with potential. Something worth taking a risk on. _Perfect,_ Draco had said, and Harry couldn’t help but agree. It really was.

_/fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are love, and comments make my heart soar! Thank you for reading!


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